Prep football: PCM shuts out penalty-plagued Blue Demons

OSKALOOSA — The Albia football was looking to gear up for the biggest stretch of its season.

Mother Nature, however, had other ideas. The last week of Iowa's wettest September ended with multiple days of heavy rain, making it almost impossible for the Blue Demons to get any quality time to prepare on the field for their game on Friday against defending district champion PCM.

"It was a frustrating week. We practiced once outside and it was on a playground," Albia senior Gage Chance said. "We just don't have any football fields that would play on. It was just too wet."

So wet, in fact, that the Blue Demons were forced to move the game from a saturated Ironman Field to the turf field of Community Stadium in Oskaloosa. Once finally out on the field, the struggles continued for the Blue Demons as 23 penalties stymied Albia on both sides of the ball in a 28-0 loss to PCM dropping Albia out of a tie for the lead in Class 2A, District 7.

"The kids played hard. They're battling every week," Albia head football coach Matt Carlson said. "Practice the last two weeks has been different for all of us, but you still have to show up on Friday night. You hate walking away thinking we didn't quite get the best out of it and give them the best we had.

"PCM a good team with a lot of tradition that have played a lot of football in big moments. We haven't at this point. We're getting there. There are no moral victories, but I this we got a little better and stood up to them better than we have in the past."

Albia (3-2, 2-1 district) heads to Centerville this Friday night for the 'Battle of Highway 5.' The Big Reds, coming off a 40-6 win at South Tama, need wins over Albia and PCM over the final two weeks of the regular season to secure the outright district title and as many as two potential playoff games at Paul Johnson Field.